A Community of Literacy Champions

My name is Benjamin Oliver, and I am an AmeriCorps member championing literacy in Kent County through the Schools of Hope Family Literacy Program.  My school site is Harrison Park Elementary, situated on the west-side of Grand Rapids, where I instruct more than 20 parents in English as a Second Language (ESL) and Family Literacy.  The goal of the program is to improve the literacy and language skills of parents so they may better assist in raising strong and successful readers. If we want every child in our community to be little “literacy champions,” then their parents have to be ones as well.     

To best illustrate the impact of our program, I will tell you about one of my students, Martina (not her real name).  Martina is from Hidalgo, Mexico, and has been in the program for two years.  In that time she has made significant progress in her linguistic ability, taking her education very seriously. As a result of being in our program, she has begun Advanced ESL classes at the Literacy Center of West Michigan and is on her way to achieving a National Career Readiness Certificate.  She has even successfully completed a college-level class through Ferris State University! 

Martina also considers the education of her kids with the same, if not greater concern.  She has stepped up as a parent leader at the school; representing a grade level in school improvement meetings, coordinating volunteers for a new Spanish literacy program, and taking initiative in planning school events such as Cinco de Mayo, Dia de los Muertos, and Teacher Appreciation Week.

More than this, Martina has connected on a personal level with school leadership, teachers, and other staff.  She constantly pushes other parents to get more involved, and she motivates her peers to come to classes.  I joke with her that the school needs to turn one of the rooms into an apartment so she could sleep there too - she’s always there helping someone! 

Martina is a literacy champion.  She takes her kids to the library, reads to them at night, and tells me that she tries to help her kids with their homework, though more often they are the ones that help her with hers.  Her children are reaping the benefits of her dedication.  They are excelling in school and her eldest daughter, an honors student, wants to go to college in the medical field.  Martina has done everything she can, from college campus visits, to connecting with a college readiness counselor and ensuring her daughter is getting the information she needs to achieve her dream.    

I am extremely proud of all of the parents that come to Family Literacy Classes.  I especially enjoy seeing them bond with their kids around learning, as they engage together in literacy activities at our monthly Family Nights.  Like Martina, nearly all of the parents in our program are regular volunteers at the school and have overcome language and cultural barriers to successfully navigate the school environment.  I can’t hear enough from school personnel who tell me how much our program has done to help them engage with families who have limited English proficiency. 

In addition to being very satisfying, helping to empower parents like Martina is also a lot of fun!  Seeing parents connect with each other and teachers—joking around, or indulging in harmless gossip—are all strong indications they feel comfortable in their child’s school and are actively building the school community.  It is important for the overall health of the school that these parents learn the necessary skills to not only understand the school system, but to feel understood themselves.         

Anyone can be a literacy champion.  It will take a community of these to combat the generational problem of illiteracy.  Bing Goei, one of two officially designated "Literacy Champions” in Grand Rapids (the other being Mayor George Heartwell), described the problem of illiteracy in Kent County in an interesting way.  He said, “Illiteracy is not only a problem for the 22 percent of the adult population that struggle with reading and writing, but it is also a problem for the 78 precent of the population who may be unaware of the issue.”  

You can help address the issue by spreading the word. Consider continuing your “lifetime of service” after your service year by tutoring a child at a school, or helping an adult with their language skills.  That is the AmeriCorps way, and if we all pitch in, if we all get things done, maybe we will have an entire community of literacy champions!

Green School Daze

The Detroit Youth Energy Squad empowers individuals, especially youth, to make their communities more energy efficient and become leaders in Michigan's green economy. D-YES is a program of WARM Training Center, a non-profit organization that promotes the development of resource-efficient, affordable, healthy homes through education, training, and technical assistance. 

Hey everyone out there in the blogosphere, Austin Broderick comin' at ya live. I'm in my second year serving with WARM Training Center's AmeriCorps program, often times referred to as the Detroit Youth Energy Squad (or D-YES, depending on who you ask). In order to understand how the program came to occupy its current niche providing environmental education and programming in Detroit Public Schools, one must first understand where we've been over the past few years....literally all over Detroit! There's a lot going on here, so pay attention.

After a successful inaugural 2010-2011 campaign, which saw approximately 20 high-school seniors from Detroit Community High School (DCHS) launch their green careers via after-school technical training in energy efficiency and home weatherization visits, D-YES Program Director Justin Schott expanded the program into FOUR schools (DCHS, Detroit Institute of Technology at Cody High School, Central Collegiate Academy, and Highland Park Community High School) for the 2011-2012 program year. Volunteers served double-duty as Weatherization Crew Leaders by morning and Education Leaders by afternoon. Thirty-six high-school students drawn from environmentally-focused after-school programs at each school were hired to serve as full-time weatherization technicians in the summer of 2012.

Thanks to an ideal partnership with Detroit Public Schools (DPS), the newest incarnation rolled off the assembly line in the fall of 2012. The AmeriCorps program has been tweaked a bit but the mission remains the same, with energy efficiency at the heart of a comprehensive environmental stewardship curriculum:

• Through hands-on, active learning, the DPS Go Green Challenge allows students to develop an ethic of environmental stewardship and take an active role in community transformation. Teachers are encouraged to use school facilities as the basis for innovative programming and serve as a tool for hands-on lessons. The DPS Go Green Challenge has three areas of focus: Student Achievement, Financial Stability, and Community Impact. 

AmeriCorps Green School Coordinators are responsible for facilitating in-class and after-school sessions with "Green Teams" at each of their schools. The Challenge exposes students to practical and hands-on activities in the areas of energy-efficiency and resource conservation, which also allow schools to reduce their energy use and operating costs. My day-to-day involves working in eight schools in Detroit's northwest side, with sessions ranging from introducing sustainability concepts to a class of energetic 1st graders, to developing green infrastructure plans for school campuses and facilitating Go Green Challenge projects. Completing each project gets a school one step closer to receiving a large cash prize awarded to the overall Challenge winner arranged by school structure; up to $1,000 for Elementary, $1,500 for Middle, and $2,400 for High Schools! It's been a race to the finish for many schools over the past few weeks as they complete projects by the April 30th deadline!

The Challenge began with the Incandescent Light Bulb Hunt to replace older light bulbs with higher-efficiency compact fluorescents (CFLs). It was not only a great primer on energy-efficiency for students, but will save the school district a bunch of money on utility bills after replacement! The second project was the Small Appliance Inventory, which teaches resource conservation by allowing students to identify and unplug extraneous appliances and dreaded energy vampires. Energy Monitors is an ongoing initiative for students to actively cut down their school's energy use by turning off lights and computers after school, and issue tickets and suggestions for further reduction. Students also spent some time investigating the efficiency of their school's heating system with the Set Points and Scheduling-HVAC Project. They spoke with their Facility Manager to learn about how the system functions, recorded temperature readings to reflect the classroom conditions, and again made recommendations to improve performance. The most tangible and exciting aspect of the Go Green Challenge, however, came last month in the form of a single-stream RECYCLING pilot program in 20 elementary and special needs schools! Each piece of paper diverted from the waste stream is a sign of progress. The rest of the schools will begin recycling programs in the fall!

Our schools are feeling especially "green" this time of year, and it's not just because spring is finally in the air! Outside of the Challenge framework, Green Teams are working around the clock and spearheading additional projects which will expand educational opportunities for years. Coordinators Alessandra and Jerry are assisting with the District's first "bio wall" at East English Preparatory Academy, while Cheryl and Erin have been busy all year with Cass Technical High School students on a hydroponic indoor growing system! We've got a number of school greening projects in the pipeline, including a "seed bombing" event that Kyung and Yazmin are organizing at Western High School. Over on the northwest side of the city, my partner Nikolette and I have been working to complete Ms. Kunjan Vyas' greenhouse transformation at Emerson Elementary, an outdoor instruction space on the Cody High School campus complete with native plantings, and a vegetable garden at the Jerry L. White Special Needs Center!

Needless to say, it's been a busy year, and I am grateful for the opportunity to use sustainability as a means of enhancing our student's academic performance and learning environments. It's exciting being on the ground floor of such a triple-bottom-line initiative from Detroit Public Schools as many generations of students will benefit from their commitment to going green. I was fortunate enough to learn about environmental stewardship at the college level; for a DPS student to learn such practical and vital information at a young age, the future's looking bright (at a lower wattage, no doubt)!

College IS Attainable

Hello World! My name is Lauren Jordan and I am a second year Mentor Michigan College Coaching Corps AmeriCorps member serving at the University of Michigan’s Center for Educational Outreach (CEO). The CEO is based in Ann Arbor but provides outreach programs for K-12 youth all over the state of Michigan from Saginaw to Monroe, Benton Harbor to Detroit.  The mission of the CEO is to engage with communities across and apply the scholarly resources of the University of Michigan to promote academic excellence at the pre-college level, encourage students to value higher education, stimulate college participation and success rates, and attract a well-prepared diverse student body to the University of Michigan. 

I help to coordinate three of the ten signature programs that CEO has to offer: College Corps, Wolverine Express, and College 101 which occurs during the summer. I also am in charge of undergraduate student recruitment, hiring, and training for all 10 programs.Each program has its own specific aim but is all encompassing of the mission of CEO. College Corps is a year-long program which aims to provide 9th and 10th grade students with resources that will equip them to succeed in the college going process. My focus is creating engaging and informational lesson plans for undergraduate students to teach on a weekly basis throughout the school year. These lessons address one of the main barriers of getting into college, financial aid, as well as other essential lessons such as finding the right college and discovering one’s learning style. 

The students in this program end the academic year with a campus visit to the University of Michigan. For many of our students, this is the first time they have ever stepped foot on a college campus, so we aim to make it very special for them. Events of the day always consist of a campus tour. Other activities range from seeing a skit from undergraduates involved in the Real on College Theatre Troupe, a student panel, college jeopardy, and a myriad of other experiences to reinforce the lessons learned throughout the year about the importance of college. 

This program proves to be meaningful not only for high school students but the undergraduate student leaders as well. Throughout the year, they form a mentor-mentee relationship with the students and can see how much of an impact they have had on the students in such a short amount of time. Students look up to them and many times continue to ask them questions about college even after the program ends. Our undergrad student leaders are able to see the true meaning of “paying it forward” and being a role model for those whose footsteps they were in just a few years prior. 

Wolverine Express is a school visitation program in which a diverse group of U-M faculty, staff, and students assemble as a team and travel to select high schools located across the state of Michigan. While at the high schools, faculty, staff, and students participate in presentations designed to promote academic success and college aspiration. Some of the schools who have been a part of Wolverine Express this year include Monroe High School, Pontiac High School, Osborn High School, and Detroit School of Arts. Each visit is unique in its planning and strategic about the placement of presenters into the classroom. After the compelling presentations, the average 500+ students we see are buzzing with college knowledge and an itch to excel. 

College 101 is a three-day residential summer program that introduces rising 10th grade students to higher education through a series of unique experiences on the U-M campus. College 101 prepares students for college while facilitating exposure to academic disciplines and career options, as well as special opportunities available to college students such as study abroad, athletics and leadership development. Interested high school students must submit an application and be selected to attend the program which is at no cost to them. As an AmeriCorps member, one of my favorite parts of the year is reading the applications from young aspiring college-bound students. They are very eager to learn the ins and outs of college as well as what it is like to live on campus. 

Undergraduate student leaders are a huge part of the College 101 program and get to know the high schoolers very well throughout the three days they are together. With days lasting from 7:00 a.m. to midnight, it definitely takes a lot of energy and tenacity to give students an all-encompassing example of a day in the life of college students. Students leave with a deeper understanding of what a college student’s schedule includes. They are aware that with freedom comes great responsibility; they understand that college is hard work but the outcome is well worth it; and most of all, they know that college is an attainable goal for them.  

Another responsibility I have in my AmeriCorps role is to recruit, hire, and train student leaders to work with the CEO. As a recent Michigan Alum, it was fairly easy for me to reach out to educationally or philanthropic- based student organizations. Once hired, finding meaningful training topics for students who have an array of skills in their repertoire was a challenge that I welcomed. This allowed me to build partnerships with departments on campus, some of which I was unaware of as a student. By sharing my resources and connections, I have been able to aid as a mentor to current U-M students as they serve the youth in our community. I have talked to many students about post-graduate plans, class schedules, and everyday stressors of being a college student. For me, it is important to remember that with all of the great outreach work our students accomplish in the community, they are still students, and they still need advising.  

As I end my second year of service, I look back on students I knew as freshman and realize they have blossomed into upperclassmen. Before this experience, I knew what a profound impact having a mentor made on someone’s life, but now I see the impact being a mentor has had on my life. I have learned much about myself both professionally and personally and I would not  change this experience for anything. It has been the great support of the staff at my host site and MMCCC that I was able to mentor and train undergraduate students which in turn are able to mentor the youth of the community. It is this cycle that produces a strong community and takes responsibility for all of its members.

Serving Saginaw

Hey AmeriCorps! My name is Rachel Wenzlick. I'm currently a third year Michigan’s AmeriCorps member serving Saginaw County through the Saginaw Substance Abuse Prevention Partnership (SSAPP.)

SSAPP consists of 20 members that are spread  throughout the county in the United Way of Saginaw County and our four partnering agencies; Prevention and Youth Services (PAYS), the YMCA, Child Abuse and Neglect Council, and Boy Scouts.  I personally am a member that is involved in several of the agencies. I serve at PAYS and the United Way, where I lucky to have the opportunity to represent the AmeriCorps program at several local events.

At PAYS, I am assisting the social workers in teaching drug education classes to the youth of Saginaw County. Typically the classes are one hour per week, for about 12-13 weeks. Each class educates students about alcohol, tobacco, other drugs, and  life skills. For instance, I am currently assistant teaching an All Star Senior program at Bridgeport High School. We are allowed by the principle and staff members to come in and take over a teacher's class every Thursday for 12 weeks. We start off the programs by giving students a pre-test to assess their current knowledge and usage of drugs and life skills. The following week, we jump into the educational aspect of the program and continue to do so throughout the course of the class. Each week we cover a different topic until we have discussed alcohol, tobacco, other drugs, resistance skills, and communication skills. At the end of the program, we give the students a post-test to see what they have learned. The program is extremely beneficial and our post-test scores typically show improvement.

PAYS also serves the State of Michigan. We travel to different tobacco vendors and educate them on how to stay in compliance with the Youth Tobacco Act. This is extremely beneficial as the rate of tobacco access to youth is very high. 

As much as I love talking about what I have been able to do personally through the AmeriCorps program and how much I love my service, I need to give credit to all the of the Saginaw Substance Abuse Prevention Partnership Members. I am proud to say I serve the Saginaw community alongside 19 other AmeriCorps members. These members are making a positive impact on our community through their various service sites and I am happy to serve with each of them!